This Friday, May 22nd, TechSoup﻿'s Nonprofit Commons in Second Life﻿ meeting will feature Michelle Morton, who will walk us through how social media has made a huge impact in the nonprofit world and how you too can use these tools to aid your organization.

With more than one billion monthly active users on Facebook, and over 230 million monthly active users on Twitter, smart brand owners and marketers know there's more potential than ever to use social media to get their name out there, spread their content, and draw more people to there site. As a non-profit organization, it is even more important to reach important objectives to keep your organization alive, including fundraising, membership recruitment and retention, motivating volunteers and more.

Michelle Morton is the President and Co-Founder of VIRTUALVillage Media, a digital media and communications agency based in National Harbor, MD. With over 15 years experience in digital media and integrated marketing, Michelle has managed projects for clients such as the Department of Defense, Motorola, Kodak International, Dennys, Badia Spices, Leadership Laboratory, CREC Group and OneWellnessPlace.com. Michelle also maintains a PMP Certification, Inbound Certification, HubSpot Certification and Digital Signage Certifications. Michelle loves building brands and working side by side with organizations to reach their communication and outreach goals. Her specialties include digital media, integrated marketing, creative design, event marketing, project management and information technology.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

This Friday, May 15th, TechSoup﻿'s Nonprofit Commons in Second Life﻿ meeting will feature a tour of the many Google tools available for nonprofits, libraries and educators. You probably are familiar with YouTube and Gmail, but what about the many other apps and tools that Google offers. Come learn and share tools useful for storytelling, learning, and furthering your mission.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

Join us for a mixed reality panel live at this year's Communities in the Future conference taking place May 14th, 2015 in New Zealand. Ros Rice (JuleeTriellis in Second Life) Executive Officer of Community Networks Aotearoa will be presenting on nonprofits using virtual worlds like Second Life to cultivate online communities.

Ros will be on stage at the event, and will be joined virtually, by the avatars of three nonprofit and educational guests, including: Alice Krueger (SL: Gentle Heron) founder of the disability focused nonprofit Virtual Ability, Inc., and Joyce Bettencourt (SL: Rhiannon Chatnoir) the online community manager for TechSoup Global's Nonprofit Commons in Second Life community.

Join us virtually in Second Life at the Nonprofit Commons Amphitheater http://bit.ly/NPCinSL

May 13, 2015, at 4:00 PM PDT/SLT (May 14, at 11:00 AM local time in Aukland NZ)

This Friday, May 8th, TechSoup﻿'s Nonprofit Commons in Second Life﻿ meeting will feature iSkyeSilverweb, and a discussion on prepping presenters, from new user entry point, to delivery of their presentations. As we all know, there is a bit of a learning curve for new avatars entering Second Life. There are numerous help islands, orientation centers and mentor programs to help make the experience more pleasant and even fun. Not everyone who enters Second Life is coming in merely to explore or discover what is here in Second Life. Some come in for a specific purpose, such as attending a class or a presentation, or even to give a presentation. To address the needs of these individuals who come to present at Virtual Ability's two annual conferences, and also to assist presenters at VWBPE's conferences, iSkyeSilverweb has developed a system for quickly orienting and training presenters coming into Second Life for the first (and hopefully not the only) time. She will share her thoughts on this and her best practices for helping these first-time-in-SL presenters to have a positive and successful experience in this virtual setting.

iSkyeSilverweb wears a few hats in the Virtual Ability community: Virtual Ability community events scheduler, Community calendar keeper, Virtual Ability Flickr maven, and a Virtual Ability Mentor. She helps plan the two annual conferences hosted by Virtual Ability: Mental Health Symposium and International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference, and is also a member of several mentor groups besides the Virtual Ability Mentors. She enjoys helping new residents get a good start in their Second Life experience. For fun, iSkye does grid hunts, explores art installations, goes shopping, and participates in activities with BURN2and the Lamplighters.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

This Friday, May 1st, TechSoup﻿'s Nonprofit Commons in Second Life﻿ meeting will feature a discussion on best practices of raising funds through online crowdfunding, an overview of crowdfunding tools and sites. We will also take time during our meeting to recognize May 1st as Global Love Day

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

This Friday, April 24th, TechSoup'sNonProfit Commons in Second Life we will have an open forum that will give us a chance to ask deeper questions from our past week's topics, discuss upcoming Nonprofit Commons events and other projects such as the design and planning of our community welcome area and resource library. It will also be an opportunity to ask any burning tech or community questions you might have.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

This Friday, April 17th, TechSoup'sNonProfit Commons in Second Life is happy to feature Jacques Macaire (jacmacaireHumby in SL), who will discuss Earth Day, environmental awareness and sustainability. Earth Day is an annual global event celebrated on April 22nd to show support for the protection of our planet and those living on it. This year is Earth Day’s 45th anniversary and the year to change our future, by becoming ourselves the leaders. It's our turn to lead.

Jacques will also share some of the sustainability action and work with the nonprofit HUMANBE he founded, and also with the other nonprofits he helps as Sustainable Human Development Director of PROTECT YOURSELF1 or with EARTH GUARDIANS FRANCE which is part, on April 22, 2015, one of the biggest grassroots effort in History on Earth Day by planting trees or seeds, with the ONE BILLION TREE project. He will also introduce us to the actions of its youth founder, Xiuhtezcatl, a 14 year old boy.

This Friday, April 10th, TechSoup'sNonProfit Commons in Second Life will feature Jean Albert Renaud (JarHorseman in SL) who will introduce his program Project Arrowhead in support of National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day.

Created in 2012 by twelve founding partners, National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) is a day to educate the public about the impact of HIV & AIDS on young people and is now officially recognized by AIDS.gov. Today’s young people are the first generation, who has never known a world without HIV and AIDS. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in four new HIV cases is among youth ages 13 to 24. While there has been much talk about an AIDS-free generation, we know that this is not possible without our nation’s youth and prevention programs that address the youth needs.

Jean Albert Renaud (JarHorseman in SL) is a visionary, music producer and former Motown songwriter and recording artist. JAR is a celebrated international horseman and horse breeder who has trained horses and riders for members of the royal families of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. His horsemanship is featured in many documentaries. He has combined these skills, resources and energies as an activist, to launch efforts to raise awareness about Human Rights issues, to empower youth, protect wild horses and promote HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention practices. It is through his vision and commitment that Protect Yourself1, was founded in 2004. JAR developed Project Arrowhead, a program that empowers and protects America’s Treasures: America’s youth, the future builders of our nation and the Mustang, who helped transform America’s wilderness into the foundation for today’s contemporary society. Project Arrowhead, connecting at-risk youth and horses, is designed to raise the consciousness level of youth on ecological issues and urban concerns. In 2013, Jean Albert Renaud was selected as a BMe leader, and his program Project Arrowhead was selected as a recipient of the 2013 Miami Foundation Black Male Engagement Fund.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

This Friday, April 3rd, TechSoup'sNonProfit Commons in Second Life will feature RameshsharmaRamloll (RameshRamloll in Second Life), of DeepSemaphore LLC. The need to match rapidly and precisely unanticipated changes in learning requirements is well established by virtual exercise designers and facilitators. RezMela™ allows subject matter experts create, tailor and manage avatar based interactive 3D virtual training environments in minutes without any programming or 3D modeling skills. The approach enables intuitive and deep control and monitoring of virtual content components from their growing library.

RameshsharmaRamloll, PhD Computer Science (Lancaster University UK), BTech Computer Science & Engineering (IITKanpur, India) has been developing immersive virtual learning environments for diverse user groups during the past seven years on platforms that include Second Life and OpenSim. He is currently the CEO/CTO of DeepSemaphore LLC, an E-Learning and Simulation Solutions company.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.

This Friday, March 27th, TechSoup'sNonProfit Commons in Second Life will feature SaffiaWiddershins, one of the lead organizers of the virtual version of the violence against women activism focused event One Billion Rising.

ONE BILLION RISING began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. On February 14, 2013, men and women in Second Life will join activists, writers, thinkers, celebrities, and people across the world to Walk, Dance, and Rise as a show of unity, individual strength, and the need for change. The objective of the event is to raise awareness, not to raise funds; however, information about real-world organisations will be available for those wishing to donate.

The mission of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is to create a community for nonprofits to explore and learn about virtual worlds, foster connections, and discover the many ways in which nonprofits might utilize the unique environment of Second Life to achieve their missions.